Digital studio recordings made in Paris
by Augustin Muller - 2008 March 23 & 24
Total time 73:06

All previously unissued

Excerpts from sleeve notes:

Swiss violist Charlotte Hug and French pianist Frédéric Blondy, being acutely
aware of the history and repertoire – both composed and improvised – of their
respective instruments, well understand that once one goes beyond the traditional
boundaries of 'normal' technique, the question of compatibility is of little or
no importance. There are moments on BOUQUET where I really don’t know who’s
doing what, and it hardly matters. From a purely technical standpoint, the instrumental
innovations are numerous – from the steely drones Blondy summons forth from his
piano by bowing its strings and the eerie glissandi he produces with rosined chopsticks
to Hug’s 'soft bow' technique, which allows her to play all four strings of her
viola simultaneously – but what impresses most about these twelve pieces is their
sheer musicality: how the sounds are produced, intriguing though that may
be, is of far less importance than what they do and how they’re combined
to produce music of formal rigour and extraordinary emotional power.

Half a dozen clicks on a mouse will summon up all the biographical information
you’re ever likely to need on our protagonists, not to mention several splendid
videos of them in action, but it’s worth pointing out that as performers and teachers
they both have wide experience of contemporary classical music (an odd appellation
contrôlée, that, as the music in question neither corresponds to the definition
of 'classical' as proposed by Charles Rosen in The Classical Style, nor is
hardly 'contemporary' anymore, since a lot of the stuff I see in contemporary
classical bins was written over half a century ago). I haven’t had the pleasure
of perusing Charlotte’s record collection, but I can tell you that there’s as much
Lachenmann and Ligeti in Fred’s as there is free jazz, and I suspect BOUQUET
is more likely to appeal to connoisseurs of Grisey, Xenakis, Cage and Feldman than
to listeners weaned on Coltrane, Sanders and Ayler.

So the line 'all music composed and performed by' (my italics) is significant
in my mind, especially since in recent years I’ve had to revise my own preconceptions
about what does or does not constitute composition. I used to think there had to
be something on paper, but I’m not so sure any more. Even assuming you could transcribe
this music accurately and end up with a more or less traditionally notated score,
any detailed analysis you then went on to make using standard new music set-theory
tools would only end up telling you what you can already hear: that this is top-notch
music made by two outstanding performers with exceptional ears for pitch, rhythm,
timbre and structure at the micro and macro level.

DAN WARBURTON (2011)

Excerpts from reviews:

"A very fine collaboration between this Swiss violist and this French
pianist, recorded in two days of studio work back in 2008. Why is this just coming
out over four years after the fact, I don't know, but it deserved to come out.
Twelve free improvisations that highlight - once again - all of Hug's sensitivity
and originality."

"A single sizzling viola note followed by a peremptory piano chord opens
up the vibrant, imaginative duo session for Charlotte Hug and Fréderic Blondy.
Two of the more committed prepared instrumentalists out there, these players avoid
the tricks-for-tricks-sake approach to improvisation and instead put their languages
in the service of carefully considered distillations of the unknown. Among the
main ingredients are tiny scrapes, low dampened chords, sustained intonations,
and groaning wood, which together make for a myriad of sonic combinations across
these pieces from 2008. But what really makes it is the combination of this vast
textural and dynamic range with an often fascinating rhythmic language. It’s there
from the start of La Belle Sultane, with Hug’s mewling, distorted strings
against brilliantine plinks and an innenklavier thrum, all coalescing in the sound
of big clouds blooming. Or, listen to the skittering mice inside the wall on
Oeillet Parfait or the gloriously contrapuntal Cato’s Pink Cluster,
which winds up into a furious cascade of notes. And the pair is smart and inquisitive
enough to couple these denser pieces with several that go deep into the grain
of various drones. Sombreuilcombines a resonant low end from Blondy (presumably
using Ebows) with Hug’s keening high-end micro-squeaks. The pianist has such
fabulous range, by the way, and can sound like bowed metal, or a series of gongs
and woodblocks at times. Nova Zambala and Thalia Remontant at times
suggest viola plus John Tilbury, but there are also those distinctive percussive
thickets that transform the laminal textures, heating them up briefly and letting
them cool back down into the sound of bells, whorls, and the most warm wood. It’s
a vibrant set of scraping symphonies and spectral worlds, all arriving at the
closing rumble of Thor. But a special word for Rosa Moyesii, which
opens with limpid single notes against a grainy drone before plunging ever deeper
into an icy grotto, in which Hug tastefully uses vocals: the deepest of sighs
and the 'aaah' of discovery, as whorls of overtones gather around these splendid,
splendid players."